But Cabot Professor of American Literature and Languages and former Dean of Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell cautioned that the issue of grade inflation, while important, should never top the list of any serious educator’s priorities.

Buell suggested that to address the issue of grade inflation, transcripts could reflect how a student performed relative to other undergraduates in the same course.

“I would not favor a requirement of this sort but rather the inclusion of another line on the transcript indicating into which quintile or quartile the student’s grade fell relative to all the grades given in the course,” he wrote in an e-mail. “That would instantly put the meaning of (say) a Harvard A- in context.”

Feldman proposed another alternative to ameliorate a grading problem he identified as compression—a narrowing of the range between high and low grades, especially as more are squeezed toward the top of the grade spectrum.

“If one is serious about wanting to reduce the amount of grade compression, then one way of doing it would be to simply go to a completely new grading system,” Feldman said. “In other words instead of A through E, it might be 1 through 10.”

Redefining the grading scale, Feldman said, would force faculty to rethink their grading practices.

—Staff writer Margaret W. Ho can be reached at mwho@fas.harvard.edu.